A Case of You
by sofaritsalright
Summary: Lit Fic, starts right after "Keg! Max". Instead of Jess leaving town without a warning, he stays and tries to mend things with Rory.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello, loves! I know that I have quite a few Lit fics already, but the other day on Tumblr, I was wondering if anyone wrote a "what could've happened" fic if Jess hadn't left Stars Hollow following "Keg! Max!" Here is that story. Well, the first chapter anyway. I understand the recap is told in a funny way, but it was hard to write out the actions. Anyway, here it is! Please comment, follow, and favorite! It makes me one happy girl.

* * *

 **RECAP**

 _The couple laid on the uncomfortable and bumpy mattress that belonged to Kyle's parents. The look of the pink room made Jess sick to his stomach, but he needed to be alone and he didn't know where else to go. He huffed the moment he heard footsteps at the door, but soon afterwards, they were here, tracing each other's tongues like constellations. Though Jess hadn't had anything to drink, he thought for some reason that getting a little handsy would be his best bet at the moment, but Rory's heart wasn't in it and she pushed him off of her in one quick motion._

 _"Geez!" Jess exclaimed as he stood up._

 _Rory sighed. "Not here, not now."_

 _"Fine!"_

 _"What's wrong with you?"_

 _"Nothing is wrong with me," Jess shouted._

 _Rory pointed towards the door, "Someone could walk in that door."_

 _"And Santa Clause could come down the chimney. Whatever."_

 _"You did not think that it was going to happen like this, did you?"_

 _The boy leaned against an ugly dresser and looked down at the ground, not ready to look her in the eye again. "I don't know what I think anymore," he said honestly._

 _"Jess-"_

 _"Rory, stop! Just stop! I did not invite you up here, you came up on your own." He yelled at her for the first time in probably ever._

 _Rory's blue eyes suddenly swelled with tears, "I don't know what I did." Just like that, she opened the door and was on her way out. She didn't even want to stay in the same room as him at this point._

 _As she left, Jess mumbled. "You didn't do anything. Rory..." As he sat there in silence, he realized his mistake. He had gone and made an ass out of himself for no reason whatsoever and took it out on the one person he loved the most. He jolted out of the bedroom and down the stairs to find Rory being coddled by Dean, the most hated man in Jess' book. He stopped to look at the pair and inhaled sharply. "Figures," he told them as he walked away._

 _From behind him, all he heard was Rory scream before Dean jumped to sucker punched him._

* * *

Later that night, Jess paced the diner in the dark. He knew that what he did was wrong, but he couldn't quite put an apology into words due to the anger that was running through his veins. He wasn't trying to be a dick, but it came off that way and it definitely didn't help that he decided to fight Dean as well. But what can you say? He wasn't in the best mood after having a not-so-fun talk with his principal earlier in the day. He wasn't going to graduate - _big deal_. Normally, news like this wouldn't upset him in the slightest, but he knew that Rory was going to be disappointed and the last thing he ever wanted to do was let her down. Ever since she came into her life, all he wanted to do was make her happy and to become a better man because of her, but sadly, his plan wasn't working out in the way he wanted it to.

Instead of pacing for another forty-five minutes, he decided it'd be best to go behind the counter and call Rory. It was better than nothing at this point. Of course she'd be pissed off and wouldn't want to hear his voice, but all he could do was try.

"Hello?" She answered in a sleepy voice. Her voice almost made Jess want to hang up and try again in the morning instead of talking to her now.

"Hey."

On the other end, Rory let out an agitated sigh. "What do you want, Jess? It's late."

It took a few moments for him to collect his thoughts and the two shared nothing but silence over the phone. "I just-" He shrugged to himself. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done any of that. I was being an ass and you, you didn't deserve to be at the end of it all."

Rory felt her heart racing again as she heard those words. An apology from Jess Mariano was one in a million and she didn't think that she was going to get one. If anything, they'd shrug it off after a few days and pretend it never happened.

"Look, I can't get tickets to prom," he told her flat-out instead of beating around the bush.

"Oh," Rory said with a disappointed tone. "Okay then."

"I was thinking that Lane could buy 'em. I'll try to sneak past everyone and be stealth, ya'know?"

"Do you think that will work?" Rory said with a small chuckle, finally lightening up a bit.

"Who knows. We can try, though."

"We can try," she repeated before she let out a yawn. "Go get some sleep, Jess. We can talk tomorrow."

The boy nodded. "Goodnight, Ror."

"Goodnight, Dodger."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** The second chapter is officially here! I know had time to actually write it all out and I hope you guys like it. There is quite a bit of reused dialog used from "Say Goodnight, Gracie", but I'm sure that's okay with all of you. Please favorite, follow, and review if you like it - that really keeps me going. Stay tuned for more soon!

* * *

The following morning, Jess sat up in bed and looked around the small apartment. He still didn't see its appeal, but it's most likely that Luke didn't either. The boy spotted all of his things sorted out nicely due to his pickiness of where things belonged. Eventually, he spotted a duffle bag, just big enough to stuff the important stuff in and leave. It's not like he hadn't thought about it before. He knew that getting out of Luke's hair was probably what his uncle wanted most and he knew it. He felt unwanted, even though he felt more love than he'd ever felt with sixteen years with his mother.

He threw himself backwards, back into laying position, making a big pounding noise. He rubbed his face, thinking about what to do before heading off to school. It was eventually that he came to the conclusion that Jess couldn't leave Rory behind. He couldn't do that to her; he cared too much to up and leave.

As soon as he started thinking about the blue-eyed girl, Luke came swinging through the door with his veins popping out of his forehead. Jess braced himself for the worst. "Guess where I just was," Luke told him with rage running through his being.

"I have no idea," Jess shrugged.

"I was at Kyle's house," he started. The teenager already knew where he was going with it. "I was in bed this morning. I had ten more minutes to sleep. Not a lot of time in the grand-scheme of things, but ten minutes is ten minutes. You know what I mean."

"What's the point of this conversation?" Jess lifted his eyebrows as he reached to the end of the bed to get his book.

Luke inhaled deeply, ready to continue his rant. Jess already felt like his eyes were going to roll back into his head if he had to hear some other account from the night before. "And then the phone rang," Luke started, "and it just rings and rings and rings and rings, so I pick it up—"

"That's a lot of rings," Jess quipped.

"Let me finish my story," Luke snapped back. "On the other end of the phone is someone named John who says he's _Kyle's_ father and _Kyle_ threw a party last night without permission and two guys got into a fight and tore the place apart. So John wanted me to come down and look at the damage and discuss some sort of solution to the problem of the damages. Now I don't know John and I certainly don't know Kyle, but I do know someone who would get into a fight at a party and leave the place completely trashed. It's a wild guess, but I think his name rhymes with Tess." Luke stopped for a moment, sucking in another deep breath. Of course it wasn't over. "So there I was, heading over there to talk to John about Kyle and discuss what is to be done about the Hummel."

Once he was finished, Jess raised an eyebrow, trying his best to feign innocence. Luke always knew. It wasn't a surprise that Kyle's parents found out, but Jess at least tried to act like it wasn't his doing. "You done now?" Jess finally asked after moments of silence. His uncle glared at him, waiting for the truth to come out. "Dean started it," he said quickly, placing the blame on his enemy. It was true, but he knew Luke wouldn't see it that way.

"Oh, you're gonna use that one, are ya?"

Jess was quick to stand up and face Luke. "Well, he did, he sucker punched me and I was just defending myself."

"Oh, apparently you defended yourself all the way through the house and out into the front yard. You defended yourself with a chair that is now broken. You defended yourself with a coffee table. You defended yourself with an Ottoman."

Jess sighed, "I seriously don't need a recap."

"Do you have any idea how much damaged you caused?"

"Dean caused it too!"

"The place was trashed!" Luke yelled back.

"Dean trashed it too."

Luke stopped for a moment to clear his throat and shake his head. "Are you _trying_ to kill me?"

"Nope, it'll just be a perk," Jess said with a smug smile.

"Okay, here's the deal: From now on, every cent that you make here goes towards paying them back."

Jess pointed across the street towards Doose's. "Hey, what about-"

His uncle cut him off, "Dean's paying them back also."

"How do you know?"

"Because _he_ was at Kyle's house when I got there."

Jess tried his best not to laugh. "You're kidding me."

"He had already worked out a financial agreement with the parents and was helping them with the fence."

"Man, he's going to make some woman a fine doormat someday," Jess rolled his eyes and tried walking away.

"You're going to make good on this Jess," Luke said as he followed him downstairs.

"I have to get to school," Jess said as if he actually cared about going.

"Every cent you get is going to paying them back. I never want those people calling me again."

"Whatever," Jess said as he headed towards the door and across the street to school. He didn't even know why he even bothered to show up after getting told that he probably wouldn't graduate anyway. He kept in mind that he was trying for Rory. He was staying for Rory. Sure, it was easy to pack up his bags, take all of his money from Luke's and Walmart and just go, but he knew that could cause too much damage. Not only for Rory, but Luke as well. Luke had done so much for him already that he wasn't about to go and screw the whole thing up. Not this time.

x-x-x

After school was finished, he headed straight back to the diner. He hoped that the Gilmores would be there when he walked in and from across the street he could tell that they were. He didn't know what was going to happen. He doubted that Rory even wanted to look at him after the catastrophe at Kyle's, but from the sound of her on the phone the night before, she wasn't too upset about it. Lorelai, on the other hand, was a whole different type of storm to deal with. She was fast on her feet and already disliked Jess enough to pounce on him like a mother lion defending her cub.

He stood at the door for a minute and started pacing. Going inside seemed like a giant shit-storm that was coming for him and he couldn't shake off that feeling. No matter what he did or thought, he couldn't bring himself to walk through the door just yet.

On the inside, Lorelai and Rory watched the boy as he walked back in forth. The older Gilmore had a wide smirk on her face as she watched; she knew that it was because of her and that sparked some type of fun for Lorelai. "How long do you think he's going to do that?"

"Maybe until you leave," Rory shrugged. She turned back to spying on Jess with a frown. She wasn't as upset as he thought she was, but that didn't make the situation any less awkward.

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying for the show." Lorelai grinned at her daughter before taking a sip of coffee. "Luke!" She yelled as soon as he came down the steps. "There's a lost puppy at your front door."

Luke looked out the window and let out a strong huff. He knew exactly what the boy was thinking and that made Luke make a dash across the diner and pull him inside by his shirt.

"Hey!" Jess yelled. "Watch the shirt."

Luke ignored the cries and threw Jess rag. "Get to work."

"I feel like this is breaking a child labor law somehow," Lorelai commented with a shrug. "Even if it is, it's highly entertaining."

After a few minutes of talking to her mother about the day she had, she finally had the guts to stand up and walk over to her boyfriend. At first he didn't notice she was standing near him, but as soon as he did, he felt as if he were being backed into a corner. No matter how far away they stood, he felt like he was about to start suffocating. " _Humiliated_ " was the last word he wanted to use, but it summed it up pretty nicely.

"Hey," Rory said before biting down on her lip.

"Hey," he greeted her back before picking up a few left-behind plates and walking behind the counter to set them down.

Rory sat down in a stool and placed her hands on the counter. She didn't make eye contact, but instead stared at her hands. She could feel her mothers gaze on the back of her neck, but tried her best to ignore it. Everyone knew that Lorelai was nosey anyway, so this wasn't the first time something like this had happened. "Should we talk?" she asked. "About last night, I mean." She cleared her throat and started playing with a packet of Equal that was left on the counter.

"If you wanna," Jess shrugged. "There's not much to say, Rory."

The honesty and irritation in his voice threw Rory off for a moment. Maybe there was nothing to say. Maybe she was overreacting. She knew that there would come a moment when he and Dean really would snap at each other, but she had no idea that it would turn into an all-out brawl.

"Okay," she nodded and lifted her head up to look at him. The boy looked sad and disappointed in himself. His usual tough exterior and confidence had faded away during their conversation. Rory almost didn't know that it was possible for Jess to look vulnerable, but she was suddenly witnessing it.

"I'm sorry." His apology was genuine. "I was acting like a jerk. I shouldn't have done that." Rory's face lit up in the slightest way as she grinned. Hearing an apology was the last thing she expected to hear from him. "I'm trying here, Ror. I really am." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, trying his best not to look like a small lost child. "What can I do to make it up to you?"

"Movie and food – my pick tonight."

"That's it?" Jess was utterly confused. "That's all you want?"

"That's all I want," she told him simply.

His brows furrowed as he looked at her, but eventually he realized that she was being honest. "I have to finish my shift first, but afterwards I'll call and we can do just that." A smile started to appear on his face, which also caused Rory to do the same.

"I'll see you then," Rory told him as she leaned over to place a kiss on his cheek.

"Yeah, see you then," he whispered.


End file.
